Second buncha songs that came in my ears, went through my head, and flew out my mouth.


This audio is part of the collection: Community Audio
It also belongs to collection:

Artist/Composer: Mike O'Donnell
Keywords: folk; a cappella

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States

Notes

Back to the first buncha songs

Track list

Second buncha songs

19. The Foggy Dew. My wife Julie's favorite song. It's about seduction
through deception and fear, but somehow in this version the deception
slips by, and the affection sings out. I learned it from John Roberts
& Tony Barrand ("Dark Ships in the Forest," see track 8), who
attribute it to Harry Cox. Other versions of the story, often with
different tunes, have "Bugaboo," "Bugle Bow," or "Bogulmaroo" in place
of "Foggy Dew." There was a "Foggy Dew" broadside printed in 1815.
J. Millet printed a ruder version of "Bogulmaroo" in 1689, and a tune
called "Bugle Bow" goes back to 1595. But, Burl Ives was put in the
Monah, Utah jail in the 1930s for singing a highly sanitized
version. [2009 September 15]

20. Getting to know dan moi. Today my two dan mois came in the mail. I
paid the princely sum of $12 for the smaller one, and $15 for the
larger. A dan moi is a sort of jaw harp cooked up and played by the
Hmong people. It can be played on the lips, without pressing against
the teeth. So, I can't resist singing into it, letting the voice and
the reed tangle together in the vast empty spaces of my head. Turned
on the recorder, snuggled into a seedy armchair, and this is the first
stuff that came out. [2009 September 14]

21. The Lead's All Gone. I heard this in a Cornell coffee shop,
probably sung by Howie Burson. Traced it back to "My Pencil Won't
Write No More," by Bo Carter, 1931 or earlier, copyright not
renewed. It's a delicate song about the heartbreak of writer's block.
[2009 September 15]

22. Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground (through dan moi). I learned this
from Michael Cooney ("Michael Cooney - singer of old songs" Front Hall
FHR-07, 1975), who got it mostly from Forest Meader. Michael Cooney
also traced it back to Bascomb Lamar Lunsford, who collected it in the
mountains of North Carolina and recorded it in 1924. Believe it or
not, this is a high fidelity recording. The distortion all comes
honorably and acoustically from the dan moi, and not from overdriving
the recording. [2009 September 14]

23. Reynardine. I learned this one from John Roberts & Tony Barrand
("Dark Ships in the Forest," see track 8). They say, "Our setting,
perhaps best known to the dramatic mixolydian tune collected ... by
A. L. Lloyd ..., is to the melody given by Stephen Sedley in The Seeds
of Love." I'll let you figure it out. Wikipedia claims that it comes
from the Victorian era, which is rather young for a ballad. If
perchance you look for "Reynardine," perchance you'll not him
find. But, you might find "The Mountains High." [2009 September 15]

24. Be Kind to Your Web Footed Friends. Got this one from my
father. Thanks, Dad! John Phillip Sousa made the tune for "The Stars
and Stripes Forever." It had to be sung. Well, Sousa himself wrote
lyrics, but they don't have to be sung. I think Dad attributed this
version to the US Army in Belgium in early 1945. Anyone who could sing
there and then has my respect. Besides, it represents a breakthrough
in music theory. The standard ending for a song on a V-I cadence is,
to put it kindly, a bit overused. A brilliant anonymous arranger knew
just how to end this version. [2009 September 4]

25. Papa Haydn's Dead and Gone. Tune from Franz Josef Haydn's
Symphony No. 94 in G major (Hoboken 1/94). Surprise! During my futile
attempt to master the piano, I played from a book that set this music
to, "See him jump upon the log, Happy little baby frog. Soon he'll
take a higher jump, From the highest hick'ry stump!" I am cursed with
a memory that holds on to those lyrics. So, when I couldn't quite
remember the last two lines of "Papa Haydn," perhaps I got a bit
loose. But, I think my version is more in the spirit of a guy who had
the tympani banged to wake up his audience, even if he pretended he
was just trying to be noiser than Ignaz Pleyel. [2009 September 4]

26. Waltzin' Matilda. I learned the tune from my father's recording of
the Coldstream Guards marching band as a very young youth. I found the
lyrics in an obsolete glossy picture magazine. Life? Look? I was very
vain about my mastery of the goofy words, but I was ignorant enough to
call them "Australian." Such a song could only come from Oz. It seems
that Banjo Paterson wrote the lyrics in 1895 for a tune composed by
Christina MacPherson, or perhaps for "The Craigeelee," or "Thou Bonnie
Wood of Craigielea," or "Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself," or "When
Sick Is It Tea You Want?" or "The Bold Fusilier," or "Marching Through
Rochester," or ... aaah look it up in Wikipedia yourself. My lyrics
seem to come from the Billy Tea Company version. Only in 'Strine can
you go waltzin' to a march. [2009 September 16]

27. The Ride of the Dooh-Dah. Surely Brünhilde, such a bouncy young
Walküre, could not have heard that marvelous tune in the sound track
of her afterlife without singing along. Why did Richard Wagner cut her
out of that song in his Ringing Nibble thing? Had he forgotten the
words? The renowned musicological historian, Elmer Fudd, made an
ingenious case for, "Kiww the wabbit." But, come on, it would have
to be, "Töte das Kaninchen," which doesn't exactly sing
out. My own, deeper, research reveals that the true words come from
the ancient language of the Nordic gods, lost for millennia, but now
brought to you ... [2009 September 4]

28. To See the Waters Gliding. Another certified folk ballad (Roud
140, Laws P14). Aka "One Morning in May," "The Bold Grenadier," "The
Nightingale Song," .... Jean Ritchie sang different words to a
different tune. I must have picked my version up at Cornell, but I
have no idea where or when. It's the sweetest metaphorical euphemism
for sexual pleasure that I've heard yet. [2009 September 24]

29. I Know an Old Lady. Tragic sequel to an eating disorder.
I just knew this song forever, but the words are approximately from
"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," by Rose Bonne and tune by
Alan Mills, copyright sometime before 1952. Copyright not renewed.
[2009 September 24]

30. So ya wanna dance, ... See, Figaro was a pretty sassy guy,
and he wasn't takin' no crap from that bossy Count guy. Music by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Italian lyrics by Lorenzo Da Ponte,
1786. American translation by me (the English translations that I've
heard being way too wussy). You gotta problem with that?
[2010 March 21]

31. Buy Broom Besoms This is ever so folksy. I learned it at
Cornell, with the folk song cult. Can't remember from whom. Don't know
why I've got the particular verses that I do. There's a Robert Burns
version, but mine is not the same. Attributed to William (Blind
Willie) Purvis, 1752-1832. I'm maybe giving it too much syncopation
this time, but I liked the sound. Just FYI: a besom is something you
sweep with, that is, a sort of broom. Broom corn is a plant used to
make a broom, which might be a besom. So a besom broom is a broom in
the besom form, which might be made of broom corn, which makes it a
broom corn besom broom. Or, it might be made of broomcom, which is a
sort of sorghum. But, if your besom broom is made of heather, it's
probably not made of broom corn, nor of broomcom, so it's probably
really a heather besom broom, and not a broom besom broom.
[2010 March 21]

32. I See the Moon Thanks again, Mom. I found lyrics on the
Web, but yours are better. Tooling down the highway in his little
blue MG, Dan/Dave & I woulda sung this in our peccable two-part
harmony, enhanced by the engine noise. I sang it too high in this
recording, and I think I was right to do so. [2010 July 21]

33. When April Showers Come in May One cold rainy day in May
1974ish I was walking across the Cornell campus and this song popped
into my head. Louis Silvers wrote the tune in 1921, and B. G. De Sylva
the original lyrics. [2011 May 29]

34. 'Tis Woman That Seduces All Mankind Air II of The
Beggar's Opera, John Gay 1728. Sorta the first musical. John Gay
wrote the words, but he stole all of the melodies, this one coming
from "The bonny gray-ey'd morn, &c." A broadside was published in
Scotland around 1701 by Thomas D'Urfey, with the header, "An excellent
new Play-House song; called, the bonny Gray-ey'd Morn; OR, Jockie,
rouz'd with Love. To an excellent new Tune." The tune is HA. 176, from
Henry Atkinson's original MS, Hartburn, Northumberland 1694. Henry
Atkinson collected fiddle tunes, and I don't know his source for this one.

Anyhow, here's a song that went from folkie to commercial and back
again. The last line says, "Beauty must be fee'd into our arms."
[2011 June 19]

More to come.

Recording and rendering

Somewhere in the dan moi sessions I switched from battery to wall
current. I was worried about a 60 Hz hum, but I haven't noticed it. I
think that track 22 used the wall current.

Occasionally, as in track 26, I left the windows open on the ground
floor enclosed porch that passes for the recording studio. You get
substantial sound from passing cars and sometimes pedestrians. Not
sure if that's too distracting, or good for the folkiness.

Individual Files

Be the first to write a review
Downloaded 310 times Reviews